


do stars dream of electric sheep?

by kwritten



Series: you and me and my ghost makes one [2]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 06:13:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7255741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a series of ficlets in-canon as if the characters had daemons (primarily trilogy-based since I'm not familiar with the EU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. leia: the way to begin is never the ending (except with you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clytemnestras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clytemnestras/gifts).



Abel knows something about Luke, this upstart with the blonde hair and skin rough from sand and wind and sun, he _knows_ something fundamental and sad about Luke, but he will not tell Leia and it's the first time in their whole lives that he's ever kept a secret from her (they never speak of her secrets, that's not the way this works) and she maybe reacts a little badly - a little bit in a way that she was not raised to behave and more in the way that she's always wanted to behave.   
  
Being a princess was harder than it ought to have been with a daemon that decided to settle at birth. A warrior of a cat larger than she was for most of her life, with a solemn disposition and sharp claws and a quick wit. She longed to be soft and thought for a while that maybe - _maybe_ \- she would be the softest, most beautiful princess in all the galaxy, with a monster clothed in yellow and black jagged stripes beside her, with her delicate hand resting between massive shoulderblades. And then in the Senate House - surrounded by all those wise birds and hissing snakes and clever creatures that could hide and gossip and lie as well as their human parts - there she was with her giant cat, who never lied and never pretended and only smiled when the occasion called for it.   
  
(Later, she'd hug him around the neck and he'd lift a paw to wrap around her narrow shoulders and they would both know that he was just waiting for her to grow into him. A soldier for a General.)  
  
But today, today in this far-off god-forsaken place he _lied_ and cozied up to a lean black cat with bright green eyes and sharp teeth and didn't speak to her. Today he kept a secret and that she couldn't contend with.   
  
She always wanted to know everything.   
  
So she fought with the larger one - the one that wasn't a secret, the one that looked at her the way honey dissolved into warm milk and she didn't notice that Abel's green eyes were a perfect match to the little black cat's and she didn't notice that the quick-witted and soft little round creature sat on her shoulder as easily as if they belonged together.   
  
Because she was a Senator and she was being rescued, and that's all she fucking needed to know.


	2. padme: everything they needed and nothing they wanted (fuck them)

When people say, _She was the Youngest Queen in Five Generations_ , what they predictably leave out is: _she was trained from birth to be the youngest queen in five generations, there was never a moment in which her life was her own_.   
  
When people say, _She was the Most Beloved Queen_ , what they don't say is: _she never had a choice but to be lovable_.   
  
When people whisper, _She was so Loved, her people begged her to never leave and she went on to protect their interests on the Galactic Stage_ , what no one hears is: _they told her she couldn't, but she still ran_.  
  
When people see her sitting there on her throne, with elaborate paint covering every part of her she so desperately she wishes to hide, they see a wise and beautiful owl perched above her left shoulder. His name is Macheal and he rarely speaks, choosing to whisper asides in her ear with a gravitas that suits her station.   
  
When people see her sitting there on her throne, what they never guess is that curled into the small of her back is a small white weasel named Ingris who has been told multiple times by one advisor or another to hide because no one trusts a Queen with a daemon the size of her own small hands.   
  
(Sabé whispers late in the night, with her naked limbs draped over Padmé's, that if they didn't trust her small hands, then why did they trust the rest of her? Macheal probably has an answer for that, but he spends his evenings keeping Ingris warm as she is often cold when the sun goes down and he takes this more seriously than any diplomatic meeting.  
  
These four, running a planet and looking so pristine, they are nothing that people think they are.)  
  
  
  
  
She loves hiding in plain sight, loves walking around the world with Ingris wrapped around her own wrist instead of pattering inches from Sabé's heels as if it was that simple to belong to someone else.   
  
(Ownership is the most slippery concept in the known galaxy.)  
  
She loves hiding in plain sight with a Jedi beside her and a child at her back and Sabé safe far, far away.   
  
  
  
She loves even more the moment that she is free of a planet that loved her so much they molded her into something she didn't particularly care to be.   
  
_They never knew there were four of us, when they only wanted one,_ she said tearfully to Sabé as they hugged goodbye.   
  
Machael shrugged his impressive shoulders, _Were we ever very interested in you giving them what they wanted, when they needed so much more?_  
  
  
  
She calls Sabé every night her first five years in the Senate House.   
  
They voted for one and got four.   
  
  
  
(The first night after she meets a sandy-haired slave the four of them dream of a girl with her face and a giant cat beside her. Sabé wakes her with a kiss and they cry into each other's necks.   
  
The first night after she takes Anakin into her bed, trying not to notice the way Ingris hides from his long, red-eyed snake, she dreams of a girl with her face and a galloping pudú at her heels and she cries. Sabé calls and Ingris says to them, _well of course we don't see him, his story is so big, what does he need in our dreams?_  
  
The first night after she takes office as the Queen of Naboo, she dreams of a Jedi with a quick smile and a deep heart, she dreams of him dying and the screams of a small, dark bird. She wakes trembling in Sabé's arms and it's the last night of her reign that they begin in separate beds.)


End file.
